Showing posts with label Occult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Occult. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Bog Hag Anthology ~ @RABTBookTours #RABTBookTours #BogHagAnthology #Horror #DarkFantasy ~ Dark Fantasy, Lovecraftian Fantasy, Horror, Occult and Supernatural, Witchcraft and Magic


Bog Hag Anthology


Dark Fantasy, Lovecraftian Fantasy, Horror, Occult and Supernatural, Witchcraft and Magic

Publication Date: October 14, 2024

About the Book:

Whether she’s crawling across a sweltering bayou or swimming languidly through a swamp, the bog hag watches and waits.

Join sixteen AuthorTubers as they explore the allure and mystery of the Bog Hag, turning her from a villain to a gal with a social calendar, a vendetta, or even a need to be the best she can be.

Any and all proceeds from the sales of this anthology go to Quill Cottage Wildlife, a 501C3 nonprofit.



Featuring A Murky Reckoning

Garwick Greedgill is a fisherman desperate to become a legend in the realm where he dwells. When he pulls a horrific creature up from the polluted sea, he sacrifices it to the legendary sorceress who is said to live at the center of the bog near which he dwells.

Yadira of the Roots is said to be the daughter of Nyarlathotep, the Wish-Bringer From Beyond the Stars. Will Garwick’s actions earn favor from the storied Bog Hag, or does another fate await him?




Read an Excerpt:

An Aquatic Reckoning


Back at the dock, the fisherman hurried to the stables, paying the stable hand four Electrotokens to rent a cart and a pair of mules to haul his catch away. He promised to return the cart and the animals the next day.

Garwick Greedgill was thick around the midsection and had a sunken chest and narrow frame that belied the strength of his wiry arms. His leathery, tanned skin bore witness to many years spent on a boat's deck under the sun's harsh glare. His hair was a bristly mix of silver and gunmetal gray, poking through the many holes in a threadbare red cap embossed with the emblem of a long-forgotten fishing guild. A heavy forehead and scowling brow framed eyes a sickly shade of murky green, reminiscent of a polluted ocean. His broad nose bent slightly to one side courtesy of a mishap with the sail boom. Countless hours spent retrieving catch after catch left his calloused hands stained with fish scales and innards as he searched for the grand haul that always eluded him.

Garwick wore frayed puce trousers held up by a filthy, tattered flaxen rope belt. His once-bright cerise tunic, covered in various colored patches where he had mended it over the years, was threadbare. It hung loosely over his prominent belly. The soles of his scuffed brown boots were worn thin, leaving his feet vulnerable to the cold and damp. He wore a necklace of oddly shaped stones and bones that he believed would attract good luck. The longed-for luck seldom materialized.

Garwick drove the cart as close as possible to the bog extending beyond his property's edge. He lived in a ramshackle hut between the bog and a twisting, moss-covered path that led to a meandering creek. Near the hut was a dingy shed. Every corner held remnants of his profession—a collection of rusty hooks, tattered nets, and an old, cracked barrel filled with miscellaneous items of dubious worth. A box containing lucky tokens collected over the years sat on a dusty shelf. Best of all, there was a wondrous grimoire. An odor of decay emanated from the book's brown hide cover. Garwick did not mind the strange texture or unpleasant scent of the tome. Based on today's catch, the grimoire's magic had already begun to work.


About the Author:
 

C. L. Hart, the owner and sole employee of Naughty Netherworld Press and Ornery Owl Ventures, is spoken of in hushed tones. She is an editor who writes or a writer who edits. She is also described as The Mad Scribe of the Northeastern Colorado Plains, The Terrible Old Woman, and The Author That Should Not Be. She is a member of ACES Editing Society, the Denver Horror Collective, First Coast Romance Writers, the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, Passionate Ink (writing as Lil DeVille), Regency Romance Writers, and Rocky Mountain Romance Writers.

Ms. Hart shares a home in a remote rural town of 134 souls with her adult son and three cats. Her sense of fashion is best described as Early Twenty-First Century Unmade Bed. This disabled former nurse can usually be found arguing with herself about subplots or rehabilitating eldritch horrors.

When not penning sanity-destroying works of dystopian fiction, Lovecraftian fantasy, or old-school horror with the occasional sweet romance thrown in to upset the cosmic apple cart, Ms. Hart enjoys creating baked goods she hopes will be considered palatable by someone besides eldritch horrors.






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Monday, July 31, 2023

Release Blitz ~ HEL by Gitte Tamar ~ @BrigitteTamar @RABTBookTours #RABTBookTours #Hel #GitteTamar #Horror


HEL by Gitte Tamar

Horror, Dark Fantasy, Psychological Thriller, Fiction, Occult

Date Published: July 17, 2023

 

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About the Book:

After losing his job at a genomic research company, Joel worries about his ability to provide for his family, especially during the holiday season. Even more concerning is how his unemployment may affect his perfect image within the extremist community he has lived in since birth. Lured by the idea of a quick fix, he impulsively books a flight for himself and his family to Europe when the offer of a large inheritance arrives in his inbox. Confident that he knows best, Joel blindly trusts a stranger's invitation to return to the village of his ancestors to collect his birthright. But rather than wealth, they quickly discover that their lineage only possesses monstrous truths with deadly consequences. 

 About the Author:

Brigitte, "Gitte," Tamar was born in a small rural Oregon town. Growing up, she was enthralled by scary tales featuring poetic tones and consistently gravitated towards writing darkened narratives. In the different storylines, Brigitte explores the harsh realities of social issues faced by today's generations. This includes the dark outcomes brought on by peer pressure, addiction, homelessness, mental illness, childhood trauma, and abuse. She feels it is essential to share narratives that refrain from sugarcoating the topics society tends to shy away from.

 

Contact Links:

Website

Instagram

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Bookbub

 

Purchase Link:

Amazon


RABT Book Tours & PR

Saturday, April 1, 2023

The Quest for the Wizard’s Key by C.L. Hart ~ @RABTBookTours #RABTBookTours #TheQuestfortheWizardsKey #CLHart #ParanormalFantasy @readersroost


The Quest for the Wizard’s Key

by C.L. Hart

Tales from the Dreamlands, Book 2

 

Paranormal Fantasy, Occult and Supernatural, Lovecraftian, SciFi Fantasy

Publication Date: April 1, 2023

 

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About the Book:

The Wizard's Key is the second book in a series of New Cthulhu Mythos tales. This fix-up novel features a fascinating cast of outcasts on a quest to save the Cosmos from destruction by malevolent forces. Join them on their madcap journey.

This fix-up novel follows the events that transpired in Ketil and Yitzy’s Adventure in the Xura Dream House. The book can be read as a standalone, but for a better understanding of the characters and events, it is suggested that Ketil and Yitzy’s Adventure in the Xura Dream House should be read first. It is a fun, fast-paced buddy story with plenty of creepy, crazy twists and turns.

Once you have read Ketil and Yitzy’s Adventure, you will be In the Know so you can be In with the In Crowd! Then you can join us at the Kewl Eldritch Horrors table. 

About the Author:

C. L. Hart, the owner and sole employee of Naughty Netherworld Press, is spoken of in hushed tones. She is described as The Mad Scribe of the Northeastern Colorado Plains, The Terrible Old Woman, and The Author That Should Not Be.

When not penning sanity-destroying works of dystopian fiction, Lovecraftian fantasy, or old-school horror with the occasional sweet romance thrown in to upset the cosmic apple cart, Ms. Hart enjoys creating baked goods that she hopes will be considered palatable.

Ms. Hart shares a home in a remote rural town of 134 souls with her adult son and three cats. Her sense of fashion is best described as Early Twenty-First Century Unmade Bed. This disabled former nurse can usually be found arguing with herself about subplots or rehabilitating eldritch horrors.


Follow C. L. Hart:

C. L. Hart Amazon Author Page

Naughty Netherworld Press Blog

Naughty Netherworld Press Books

Naughty Netherworld Press Substack

Readers Roost Book Blog

Readers Roost Twitter

Naughty Netherworld Newsletter

 

Purchase Link:

Amazon

RABT Book Tours & PR

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Teaser Tuesday ~ The Quest for the Wizard’s Key by C.L. Hart @readersroost ~ Paranormal Fantasy, Occult and Supernatural, Lovecraftian, Sci-Fi Fantasy ~ @RABTBookTours #RABTBookTours #TheQuestfortheWizardsKey #CLHart #Fantasy


The Quest for the Wizard’s Key 

by C.L. Hart

Tales from the Dreamlands, Book 2

 

Paranormal Fantasy, Occult and Supernatural, Lovecraftian, Sci-Fi Fantasy

Publication Date: April 1, 2023

 

photo add-to-goodreads-button_zpsc7b3c634.png

 

About the Book:

The Wizard's Key is the second book in a series of New Cthulhu Mythos tales. This fix-up novel features a fascinating cast of outcasts on a quest to save the Cosmos from destruction by malevolent forces. Join them on their madcap journey.

This fix-up novel follows the events that transpired in Ketil and Yitzy’s Adventure in the Xura Dream House. The book can be read as a standalone, but for a better understanding of the characters and events, it is suggested that Ketil and Yitzy’s Adventure in the Xura Dream House should be read first. It is a fun, fast-paced buddy story with plenty of creepy, crazy twists and turns.

Once you have read Ketil and Yitzy’s Adventure, you will be In the Know so you can be In with the In Crowd! Then you can join us at the Kewl Eldritch Horrors table. 

 

Read an Excerpt:

 

Corporate Climbers vs. Bleeding Hearts and Artists

 

“The one I refer to as the Galaxy Girl is the soul knowed as Pepper Baiij in this lifetime,” Ketil revealed. “There is those who say that Pepper is simply unlucky. It is others which say that Pepper brings to herself her own troubles by being terribly lazy and unmotivated. Pepper is not unmotivated, if presented with tasks that interest her. She can easy become distracted from tasks which does not interest her and can become quickly depressed if forced to carry on with such tasks for extended periods of time.

“Some have said that Pepper is entitled and expects the world to be handed to her upon a silver platter when she was born with a plastic spoon in her mouth. This is inaccurate. Pepper is not entitled or a snob, but she was wired for more than what a nine-to-five job which squashes her creative spirit offers.

“When we believe that people is only as worthwhile as their willingness to climb a corporate ladder, then surely people such as Pepper and all of us is worth about as much as yellow snow. To some people, the only measure of success is to achieve a number above the salary they earned the previous year at the corporation to which they drive daily. For these people, the life of nine to five in a fine office is the best of all possible atmospheres. But for those who prefer to detail the story of their lives on creative canvasses, the daily commutes to and from the office is dead-end drives, for beyond the afterglow effect of receiving money with which to pay the bills, each hour spent in the office is but a slow march to death for their soul.

“Thus, the corporate ladder climb is all fine and good for the sort of Theodore Thirsty what derives joy from being toasty in Topeka in their luxury office. I do not in any case trust such Theodores. They seem initially to be people-pleasers, but all too often these men of mystery is sipping on subterfuge while minty descriptions slip from their silver tongues to camouflage lemony liabilities. If one is not a watchful Winifred in the company of these Theodores, one can find oneself knee-deep in the aftermath of consuming too great a portion of chili cheese custard.”

“It seems ter me, Ketil, that your old China Plate Pepper is much more the bloomin' sort of lassie wot prefers whimsy and wildflowers ter stuffy offices and climbin' of corporate ladders and whatnot,” Little John observed as he and Robin shared a platter of what looked disturbingly like a half-dozen large kangaroo rats that had been left out in the sun to bloat before being consumed, while Rilpu swallowed a creature resembling a fresh, plump toad. Yitzy the Yithian, meanwhile, seemed quite content to delicately sip the apricot-hued ambrosia of the Pxab Plume into one of his four trumpetlike mouths.

“It is a shame that the juice of the Pxab Plume is not more intoxicating,” Ketil quipped, pouring a serving of the beverage into a wine goblet the yellow hue of which reminded the spirit of Earth’s sun. “For I should quite like to blur the sight of you lot gorging yourselves on rodents and toads from my unfortunate brain.”

“You ain’t got a brain, Ketil, yer a ghost,” Robin chortled.

 

About the Author:


C. L. Hart, the owner and sole employee of Naughty Netherworld Press, is spoken of in hushed tones. She is described as The Mad Scribe of the Northeastern Colorado Plains, The Terrible Old Woman, and The Author That Should Not Be.

When not penning sanity-destroying works of dystopian fiction, Lovecraftian fantasy, or old-school horror with the occasional sweet romance thrown in to upset the cosmic apple cart, Ms. Hart enjoys creating baked goods that she hopes will be considered palatable.

Ms. Hart shares a home in a remote rural town of 134 souls with her adult son and three cats. Her sense of fashion is best described as Early Twenty-First Century Unmade Bed. This disabled former nurse can usually be found arguing with herself about subplots or rehabilitating eldritch horrors.


Follow C. L. Hart

C. L. Hart Amazon Author Page

Naughty Netherworld Press Blog

Naughty Netherworld Press Books

Naughty Netherworld Press Substack

Readers Roost Book Blog

Readers Roost Twitter

Naughty Netherworld Newsletter

 

Purchase Link

Amazon


RABT Book Tours & PR

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Welcome to Another Special Post for the Haunted Halloween Spooktacular ~ Witch's Brew Cocktail Recipe by Maria DeBlassie, Author of Weep, Woman, Weep (A Gothic Fairytale about Ancestral Hauntings) @EnchantmentLL



Witch's Brew Cocktail

It’s been a while since I’ve concocted a cocktail recipe, and even longer since I’ve come up with one for Halloween.  I love a good cocktail because they’ve always struck me as one of the most basic kinds of potions.  Think about it: a good cocktail can give us liquid courage, exorcise a hard work week, or even act as a temporary love spell.  And as will all potions and spells, the medicine is in the dosage.  Too much and it’s poison, too little and your Friday night is perhaps a little less adventurous (wink wink).  

It bears repeating that I like to avoid syrupy or excessively sugary ingredients and stick to clean tastes modeled after the classics when it comes to cocktail making.  I do this because most novelty cocktail—a la Halloween drinks—are sugar bombs.  Not my idea of a good time or a tasty drink.  Although I call these Halloween-inspired concoctions, I have been known to drink them throughout the year, especially the green fairy, a tasty absinthe-kissed cocktail perfect for ending the workweek and stirring up some writing inspiration for the weekend. 

Lately, come Saturday night, I’ve been experimenting with this new drink: Witch’s Brew.  It was inspired by my garden and all the herbs I cultivate there: rosemary, lavender, sage…all delicious, all medicinal, all typically associated with healers and witches because of their various magical and healing properties. I started wondering how I could fold those flavors into a tasty magical brew.

I used gin as the base because of herbaceousness and went for a bold choice of mixer: chartreuse.  It’s what gives this drink the verdant green color we typically associate with potions.  It’s also an ancient healing tincture made from over 130 herbs.  It tastes fresh, like mint and fennel, with the other herbs as a strong supporting cast.  Yum!  I paired this refreshing taste with lime because I love a good gimlet and its variants. 

The real kicker to this is what I do with the gin.  I infuse it with green apples—who doesn’t think of witches without thinking of forbidden fruit?—along with rosemary and a few juniper berries to make the herbaceousness of the gin really pop.  Also because I love rosemary, the natural protector of the herb world.  Juniper berries are also fast becoming a kitchen witch staple in my home.  Did you know juniper both protects good energy and repels the negative? If that’s not magical, I don’t know what is! Add a dash of bay leaf bitters, for the leaf’s powers of divination. 

As with all spells (and drinks), feel free to play with the recipe. Chartreuse might be a bit pricy for some (though a little goes a long way so it will last a while!), try swapping it out with rosemary or ginger simple syrup or apple schnapps (or both!)—it will change the flavor, but will no doubt be equally festive, if with more sugar.  The infused gin makes about two cups of yum—plenty to experiment with or to whip up a magical batch of this brew.

All good spells require a little time, a little love, and quality ingredients.  While this cocktail is a touch more labor-intensive than my others in that you first need a week to infuse the gin, it’s worth it.  Plus, while you wait, you can prepare the right kind of energy you want to infuse into this brew.  Do you need a little more magic in your life?  A little more mischief?  A dash of hope or a heading dose of healing?  Whatever you need, let it brew until you’re ready to infuse it into a batch of this tasty elixir.  



 
Ingredients:

For infused gin:
2 cups gin
1 Granny Smith apple
2-4 juniper berries (depending on how strong you want the juniper flavor to be)
1 large spring of rosemary

For cocktail:

2 oz apple and herb-infused gin
2 dashes bay leaf bitters
.75 oz chartreuse
.5 to .75 oz freshly squeezed lime juice (depending on how tart you like it)

In infuse gin, slice green apple and place in clean mason jar.  Squeeze juniper berries so they crack a little—this will help the alcohol absorb their flavor more—and place in jar.  Pour gin over ingredients and let sit for a week, shaking when you remember to.  A day or two before you want to enjoy your cocktail, throw in a sprig of rosemary that has been slightly bruised, again, to help the alcohol better absorb its flavor.  I wait for a little on the rosemary because the fresh stuff takes less time to be extracted in alcohol and letting it sit too long in the gin muddies the flavor.  To use, pour gin through a strainer into a clean mason jar.

For the cocktail, mix gin, chartreuse, lime juice, and a dash of bitters in a shaker.  Add ice and shake until the container is frosty. Serves one—so double or triple the batch and invite your coven over. Pair with a chilly autumn night, a full moon, and a handful of spells.  Cauldron optional. 

This post originally appeared on Enchantment Learning and Living, home of professor, writer, and bruja Maria DeBlassie, where true magic is in the everyday!




Weep, Woman, Weep
A Gothic Fairytale about Ancestral Hauntings 
Maria DeBlassie

Genre: Gothic Fairytale, Occult, Supernatural
Publisher: Kitchen Witch Press
Date of Publication: August 25, 2021
ISBN:978-0-578-97464-4
ASIN: B09CV9P9SH
Number of pages:150 pages
Word Count: 37,935
Cover Artist: Rachel Ross

Tagline: Nothing makes a woman brave except getting on with the business of daily life.

About the Book:

A compelling gothic fairytale by bruja and award-winning writer Maria DeBlassie.

The women of Sueño, New Mexico don't know how to live a life without sorrows.

That's La Llorona's doing.  She roams the waterways looking for the next generation of girls to baptize, filling them with more tears than any woman should have to hold. And there's not much they can do about the Weeping Woman except to avoid walking along the riverbank at night and to try to keep their sadness in check.  That's what attracts her to them: the pain and heartache that gets passed down from one generation of women to the next.  

Mercy knows this, probably better than anyone.  She lost her best friend to La Llorona and almost found a watery grave herself.  But she survived. Only she didn't come back quite right and she knows La Llorona won't be satisfied until she drags the one soul that got away back to the bottom of the river.

In a battle for her life, Mercy fights to break the chains of generational trauma and reclaim her soul free from ancestral hauntings by turning to the only things that she knows can save her: plant medicine, pulp books, and the promise of a love so strong not even La Llorona can stop it from happening.  What unfolds is a stunning tale of one woman's journey into magic, healing, and rebirth.

CW: assault, domestic violence, racism, colorism

Purchase from Amazon https://amzn.to/3S2pH16

Read an Excerpt:

One time, I was feeling mighty fine and thought I’d try something different. I saw this ad in a magazine where a woman was in an obscenely large bathtub and covered up to the neck in bubbles. This was in a room with a marble floor, and there were candles everywhere, and she had her hair up all nice and a face mask on. Well, I got to thinking a nice long soak after a hard day’s work would be nice.

This was a few months after my run-in with Sherry, and I was trying hard to let myself enjoy things more. It occurred to me after seeing her that her fatal flaw was not believing that her future was right in front of her. Or maybe she was too afraid to take it with both hands. I began to wonder if we didn’t hold back and do half the work for La Llorona with all that we ran from life.

So I bought some bubble bath and made more beeswax candles and set about having myself a spa night. I mean, my bathroom was nowhere near as nice as the one in the picture. My tub was only long enough for me to sit upright and was right next to the toilet, but I made do.

It was lovely. I mean, divine! I could see why fancy women liked this. I put on the radio, and the music was soft and sweet, like the candlelight against the fading day. I was so relaxed, that I was about to fall asleep in that tub.

That was when I felt cold hands grip the soles of my feet and pull me under.
I should have seen it coming. Why willingly linger in a body of water? But I didn’t, and that was how I found myself drowning in bubbles and thrashing around in my tub. It’s also how I learned that evil woman could find me anywhere—and I mean anywhere—so I could never let my guard down.

Her grip was strong. Seemed like the harder I fought, the stronger she got. I was flailing about, my arms searching for anything and everything to hold on to, when I knocked one of those beeswax candles into the tub. To this day, I have no idea why that scared her, but it did. She recoiled something quick at the hiss of the flame when the wax hit water.

I didn’t waste a second—I hoisted myself out of the tub and collapsed on the bathroom floor, choking and sputtering and sopping wet. Took me forever to clean up the mess and cough up all those flower-scented bubbles. My feet were cold and sore for days, with claw marks where her bony fingers hooked into my skin.

Whoever said bubble baths were relaxing was a big fat liar. 

About the Author:

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and award-winning educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her first book, Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic and Daily Conjurings (Moon Books 2018), and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning and Living are about everyday magic, ordinary gothic, and the life of a kitchen witch. When she is not practicing her own brand of brujeria, she's reading, teaching, and writing about bodice rippers and things that go bump in the night. She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there.


Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at https://mariadeblassie.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enchantmentll

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/enchantmentll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mdeblassie.writer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rY-gLkSH-w8uuVyrhVALA






 
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Friday, October 29, 2021

Haunted Halloween Spooktacular & #Giveaway ~ The Ghosts We Carry and How to Banish Them by Maria DeBlassie, Author of Weep, Woman, Weep A Gothic Fairytale about Ancestral Hauntings @EnchantmentLL ~ Gothic Fairytale, Occult, Supernatural



The Ghosts We Carry and How to Banish Them

Have you ever noticed how in haunted house stories or an occult detective tale, there’s always an object that keeps a spirit anchored to a place?  It could be a keepsake from when the ghost was a living being or a terrible artifact use to summon darker entities.  Sometimes it’s a whole room or house, the energy of the people who have lived in it soaking into the very walls.  Other times it’s the memory of a horrific incident that has bled into the earth.

In order to banish the ghost, of course, we have to destroy the object—set it on fire, break it, or, to be less dramatic, let it go or move on from it. 

Move out of the haunted house.  

Contain the dark occult artifact that can’t be destroyed so that no one will find it (until the inevitable sequel, of course….this is dramatic fiction after all!). 

These stories remind us, in one way or another, that the things we carry with us absorb the energy of our experiences.  And that, sometimes, the only way we can move forward is to let those objects go.  Otherwise, we keep that old energy—sometimes toxic energy—around and get stuck, finding ourselves in a time loop of the same draining experiences that first tainted the objects in question.


The Ghosts We Carry 

Take, for instance, the story of The Sad Birthday Dress.  It goes like this:  There once was a woman who wanted to feel beautiful.  All day long she was asked to be nothing but a talking head.  But this woman knew she had a heart and hips and a juicy center.  So she bought herself a dress to remind herself that she could be a whole person and not just a shriveled head sitting in someone’s cabinet of curiosities.  And what a dress it was!  It was stunning, with finely spun organic lilac cotton and loud bouncy yellow and white polka dots that told her that she was allowed to have color in her life—that she was allowed to be of color, no need to pass as another kind of pale specter.   The skirt was flouncy and feminine and begged to be flipped up for illicit romance or at least a lively dance.

It was the perfect birthday dress.  So she did what any woman who wanted to feel alive did—she wore it out and ate cake and drank champagne and danced until the weight of the pale city bore down on her and her loud pretty dress didn’t make her feel pretty anymore.  Just sad.  Unspeakably so.  Because, she realized, this dress didn’t make her feel pretty.  It only reminded her that she lived in a place that didn’t want her to be a flesh and blood woman.  A city that was uncomfortable with her long wild hair and her rounded hips and the way the bodice of her dress clung to her breasts.   She knew shame in that dress.  And a sadness that welled up inside her until it became heartbreak.  That heartbreak spread from her body and into the dress as surely as the bubbly drink had spread through her body only moments before.

The woman learned a hard lesson that night:  A dress couldn’t fix a city that treated her like a brown stain on a white shirt.  And cake couldn’t disguise the fact that there was no sweetness for her there. Only loneliness and a bone-deep cold.  The solution was to leave in search of warmer hands and beating hearts.

Eventually, the dress came off.  But the heartbreak stayed.  And every time the woman tried to wear her I Am Beautiful Dress, she inevitably took it off and rehung in her closet, until one day she stopped trying to wear it all together.  It moved to the back of her closet, limp and half-forgotten, like a mediocre date or half-baked wish.  It was no longer her I Am Beautiful Dress.  It was stained with the experience of that night, which is how it became The Sad Birthday Dress.

Years later, when the woman had figured how to be a breathing, living woman and not someone else’s curiosity, she pulled the dress from her closet and her heart broke all over again.  She knew there was no reclaiming the original power of the beautiful bouncy fabric.  Of cake and champagne and moonlight.  In the dress, she saw the pain of her past welling up inside of her.  Its presence was like a ghost reminding her of all the broken things she could never fix. Of the hopeless realization that the thing she wanted—thought she wanted—wasn’t for her and, in fact, had never existed at all. She had been chasing phantoms and, in the process, almost become one herself.

So she packed it up and gave it away in the hopes that it might become what it was meant to be—that I Am Beautiful Dress—for someone else who was ready to pay the price to reclaim that joy in the way she hadn’t been when she had first purchased it.  The weight of that terrible time lifted from her shoulders and the energy in her home felt lighter. 

Now the woman has a closet full of I Am Beautiful Dresses.  They are loud.  And they sparkle.  And they have hems ready to be tossed above the knee for dancing and more dancing and things that would make you blush for me to write.   And they all radiate joy.  All because she let go of the thing that was holding her back.  All because she chose to feel the pain of the past and let it go.  All because she chose to be a loud woman with a beating heart in a sun-kissed land and not a phantom shade. 

Banishing Ghosts

Lovely little story, isn’t it?  And it’s all true.  I once had an I Am Beautiful Dress that became The Sad Birthday Dress.  And when I gave it away, I was giving myself permission to be more than that sad story.  I could learn from my past and create space for joy in my present.  The truth is, we all have a proverbial Sad Birthday Dress or something that was once a profound piece of armor in our lives that became stained by experience.  Other times, we change—becoming someone that certain objects no longer feel attached to, can no longer nourish.  And in order to keep growing, transforming, evolving, we must let them go.  If we don’t, what once was beautiful or nourishing becomes toxic.  The spirit that won’t move on becomes the ghost that terrorizes the living.

Having recently completed a massive house cleansing—saying goodbye to old ghosts and old selves—I found myself thinking about one of my pieces from Everyday Enchantments, “Letting Go of Past Lives, “ about the things you hold on to even when you are ready to let go of the person you used to be.  It can be scary to let go of the past because, as stagnant as it can make us, it’s also familiar and comforting. That’s why we hold on to so much unnecessary stuff. It keeps us feeling safe—but it also keeps us stuck.  In the end, it’s better to let go and know that you are creating space for new, positive vibes to enter your life (but not necessarily more stuff!).

The first part of banishing ghosts or old selves?  Let go of the objects they are attached to.  Say goodbye to things that don’t bring you joy or that you haven’t used in over a year.   Be conscious of the energy you want in your home and life.  Then be ruthless about protecting it—get rid of anything that doesn’t contribute to your overall sense of well-being.  Ghosts hide behind sentiment and guilt to keep you trapped under their spell.  Low-level spirits are a lot like low-level people: They want you to feel as trapped and miserable as they are, so they’ll do anything to stay in your life.  Best to see them for what they are and move on.

The second part of ghostbusting?  Let go of the troubling energy you’ve been holding onto psychically.  That last one will take a little more time, but letting go of the object that keeps constellating that energy will go a long way to dispersing its psychic impact.  Give yourself permission to heal and move on from sad or seemingly unfinished histories. 

The rest will follow.

This post originally appeared on Enchantment Learning and Living, home of professor, writer, and bruja Maria DeBlassie, where true magic is in the everyday!


Weep, Woman, Weep
A Gothic Fairytale about Ancestral Hauntings 
Maria DeBlassie

Genre: Gothic Fairytale, Occult, Supernatural
Publisher: Kitchen Witch Press
Date of Publication: August 25, 2021
ISBN:978-0-578-97464-4
ASIN: B09CV9P9SH
Number of pages:150 pages
Word Count: 37,935
Cover Artist: Rachel Ross

Tagline: Nothing makes a woman brave except getting on with the business of daily life.

About the Book:

A compelling gothic fairytale by bruja and award-winning writer Maria DeBlassie.

The women of Sueño, New Mexico don't know how to live a life without sorrows.

That's La Llorona's doing.  She roams the waterways looking for the next generation of girls to baptize, filling them with more tears than any woman should have to hold. And there's not much they can do about the Weeping Woman except to avoid walking along the riverbank at night and to try to keep their sadness in check.  That's what attracts her to them: the pain and heartache that gets passed down from one generation of women to the next.  

Mercy knows this, probably better than anyone.  She lost her best friend to La Llorona and almost found a watery grave herself.  But she survived. Only she didn't come back quite right and she knows La Llorona won't be satisfied until she drags the one soul that got away back to the bottom of the river.

In a battle for her life, Mercy fights to break the chains of generational trauma and reclaim her soul free from ancestral hauntings by turning to the only things that she knows can save her: plant medicine, pulp books, and the promise of a love so strong not even La Llorona can stop it from happening.  What unfolds is a stunning tale of one woman's journey into magic, healing, and rebirth.

CW: assault, domestic violence, racism, colorism

Purchase Link:


Read an Excerpt:

One time, I was feeling mighty fine and thought I’d try something different. I saw this ad in a magazine where a woman was in an obscenely large bathtub and covered up to the neck in bubbles. This was in a room with a marble floor, and there were candles everywhere, and she had her hair up all nice and a face mask on. Well, I got to thinking a nice long soak after a hard day’s work would be nice.

This was a few months after my run-in with Sherry, and I was trying hard to let myself enjoy things more. It occurred to me after seeing her that her fatal flaw was not believing that her future was right in front of her. Or maybe she was too afraid to take it with both hands. I began to wonder if we didn’t hold back and do half the work for La Llorona with all that we ran from life.

So I bought some bubble bath and made more beeswax candles and set about having myself a spa night. I mean, my bathroom was nowhere near as nice as the one in the picture. My tub was only long enough for me to sit upright and was right next to the toilet, but I made do.

It was lovely. I mean, divine! I could see why fancy women liked this. I put on the radio, and the music was soft and sweet, like the candlelight against the fading day. I was so relaxed, that I was about to fall asleep in that tub.

That was when I felt cold hands grip the soles of my feet and pull me under.
I should have seen it coming. Why willingly linger in a body of water? But I didn’t, and that was how I found myself drowning in bubbles and thrashing around in my tub. It’s also how I learned that evil woman could find me anywhere—and I mean anywhere—so I could never let my guard down.

Her grip was strong. Seemed like the harder I fought, the stronger she got. I was flailing about, my arms searching for anything and everything to hold on to, when I knocked one of those beeswax candles into the tub. To this day, I have no idea why that scared her, but it did. She recoiled something quick at the hiss of the flame when the wax hit water.

I didn’t waste a second—I hoisted myself out of the tub and collapsed on the bathroom floor, choking and sputtering and sopping wet. Took me forever to clean up the mess and cough up all those flower-scented bubbles. My feet were cold and sore for days, with claw marks where her bony fingers hooked into my skin.

Whoever said bubble baths were relaxing was a big fat liar. 

About the Author:

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and award-winning educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her first book, Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic and Daily Conjurings (Moon Books 2018), and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning and Living are about everyday magic, ordinary gothic, and the life of a kitchen witch. When she is not practicing her own brand of brujeria, she's reading, teaching, and writing about bodice rippers and things that go bump in the night. She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there.


Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at https://mariadeblassie.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enchantmentll

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/enchantmentll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mdeblassie.writer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rY-gLkSH-w8uuVyrhVALA



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Saturday, November 23, 2019

Do You Believe in Magic(k)? (Cheap Day Return) by Bob Freeman, Author of Descendant: A Novel of the Liber Monstrorum ~ @OccultDetective #Occult #Fiction #Horror



Welcome to a blog tour that will bring you thrills and chills in the heart of the holiday season with the Descendant Blog Tour featuring the Occult Detective himself, Bob Freeman!

A supernatural thriller that readers of horror will also love, Descendant includes several original illustrations from Bob Freeman! The novel is interrelated with Bob’s short story collection First Born: Tales of the Liber Monstrorum, but can be read on its own.

A great opportunity to explore fascinating subject matter with a true expert who is a highly-respected lecturer on paranormal & supernatural topics!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please welcome Bob Freeman to the blog today!!!

Do You Believe in Magic(k)?
(Cheap Day Return)
by Bob Freeman
  
Time and time again the sacred words are spoken, passed from one wordslinger to the next, like an arcane mantra from a dark and distant age. “Write what you know,” they say. All well and good, but when you’re traversing subject matter as weighty as black magic, sorcery, and necromancy, where does that road even begin?

For me it began in the early seventies with a forgotten hermetic tract I found in the bottom of an old steamer trunk in my grandparents' second floor spare room. The trunk had been my great-grandmother’s, an ancient woman by the time I met her, eerily silent and confined to a nursing home. We visited her nearly every Sunday throughout my childhood, delivering graham crackers and well wishes.

Stranger was that mysterious trunk, silent and confined in its own way, tucked into a corner and buried beneath a veritable mountain of old quilts and crocheted blankets. Within its musty cavity was a treasure trove of books and pamphlets, mostly dealing with herbs, medicinal plants, and astrology, all dating to the thirties and forties. It was an intriguing find for an eight year old boy who’d already become accustomed to sneaking out of his parents' house in the dead of night to while away the hours in a nearby boneyard.

But the true treasure found in that trunk, at least for me, was the aforementioned tract. Penned by the philosopher and mystic Manly Palmer Hall, Unseen Forces was a revelation. It was, after all, my first book of esoterica, my metaphysical primer, if you will, and it opened up a world of possibilities to me. This slender pamphlet, which had belonged to my own flesh and blood, quickly became my most prized possession. Through it I was introduced to the denizens of the invisible worlds and our connection with them, including the ‘Dweller on the Threshold,’ elementals, nature spirits, thought-forms, ghosts and spectres.

I was already consumed by the likes of Dark Shadows and The Night Stalker, and I'd just begun to read Poe and Blackwood and Wheatley alongside The Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators, and Marvel Comics... and now here was a book purporting that the world out there was far stranger than it appeared on the surface, that there was an esoteric and wondrous (and frightening) world that existed in the shadows?

I had to know more... Of course, growing up in the rural Midwest, occult books were hard to come by, especially for an eight year old boy, but not impossible. I managed to get my hands on books by authors such as Hans Holzer, Sybil Leek, and Gavin and Yvonne Frost, and even managed to score a tattered copy of Gerald Gardner's Witchcraft Today.

It was all eye-opening to say the least. Unseen Forces added fuel to my interest in the preternatural, the occult, and the hermetic sciences — an interest that is still alive and well today.

I had continued my studies through high school, college, and beyond. I became obsessed with the works of the magicicans and alchemists of the Elizabethian era, the Golden Dawn, Thelema, Gardnerian and Alexandrian Witchcraft, and later the Discordians and Chaos Magic, and I kept abreast of advances in parapsychology and physics.

When I decided to become serious about writing fiction it was only natural that I would turn to this lifelong study and interest as source material for my stories. It was, after all, a time honoured tradition. Hell, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn alone was virtually a who's who of famous authors of occult and horror fiction, including Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Aleister Crowley, Bram Stoker, and Dion Fortune, to name but a few.

"Write what you know"? Well, they, like so many before and since, certainly did.

Writing successful occult fiction requires a certain amount of verisimilitude. Having an intimate understanding of the esoteric sciences adds weight to your stories. If you want to write about the fantastic, you must make it live and breathe. You have to cast a spell on your audience, so that even if it's just for a little while, they too will believe in magic.


About the Book:

Descendant is a supernatural thriller filled with daring action, adventure, and artifice set against the backdrop of a very familiar world – but it is a world in which preternatural entities, clandestine magical orders, ancient bloodlines, and unholy alliances converge within the shadowed recesses of our darkest imaginings.

Federal Agents Selina Wolfe and Martin Crowe are called in to investigate a series of bizarre deaths in a small rural community. What first seems to be a misadventure involving black magic and satanic ritual soon takes on even more deleterious overtones, as the agents become embroiled in a plot by a sinister cabal intent on unleashing Hell on Earth.

Meet the Author:


Bob Freemanis an author, artist, and paranormal adventurer whose previous works include Shadows Over Somerset, Keepers of the Dead, and First Born.

A lifelong student of mythology, folklore, magic, and religion, Freeman has written numerous short stories, articles, and reviews for various online and print publications and is a respected lecturer on the occult and paranormal phenomena.

He lives in rural Indiana with his wife Kim and son Connor.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/331o8XK

Tour Schedule and Activities:

11/18 Dark Bites www.darkbites.ca Guest Post

11/19 Armed with A Book www.armedwithabook.com Guest Post

11/19 Sheila’s Guests and Reviews http://sheiladeeth.blogspot.com Guest Post

11/20 Sahara Foley https://saharafoley.com/blog/ Author Interview

11/20 Honestly Austen http://www.honestlyausten.com Review

11/21 Jazzy Book Reviews https://bookreviewsbyjasmine.blogspot.com/ Guest Post

11/22 The Book Junkie Reads https://thebookjunkiereadspromos.blogspot.com Author Interview

11/23 Sapphyria’s Books https://saphsbooks.blogspot.com/ Guest Post

11/24 The Seventh Star Blog http://www.theseventhstarblog.com guest post

11/25 Carol Preflaish, Mystery Author http://CarolPre.blogspot.com Author Interview

11/25 I Smell Sheep http://www.ISmellSheep.com Top Ten’s List

Purchase Links for Descendant:

Kindle Version: https://www.amazon.com/Descendant-Novel-Monstrorum-Bob-Freeman-ebook/dp/B07XNSLQBW/

Amazon Print Version: https://www.amazon.com/Descendant-Novel-Monstrorum-Bob-Freeman/dp/1948042878/

Barnes and Noble Link: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/descendant-bob-freeman/1028498347?ean=2940160816678